Chapter XIII.

How love does not only belong to God but is God.

Finally so highly is the
virtue of love extolled that the blessed Apostle John declares that it
not only belongs to God but that it is God, saying: “God is love:
he therefore that abideth in love, abideth in God, and God in
him.”197919791 John iv. 16. For so far do
we see that it is divine, that we find that what the Apostle says is
plainly a living truth in us: “For the love of God is shed abroad
in our hearts by the Holy Ghost Who dwelleth in us.”19801980Rom. v. 5. For it is the same thing as if he said
that God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost Who dwelleth in
us: who also, when we know not what we should pray for, “makes
intercession for us with groanings that cannot be uttered: But He that
searcheth the hearts knoweth what the Spirit desireth, for He asketh
for the saints according to God.”19811981Rom. viii. 26, 27.